We don’t want to jinx anything with the contract and pending sale of the house, but we also know that both our vehicles are on their last legs: they are 9 years old![1] And, my truck qualifies for the cash-for-clunkers program if we can catch it when it has money.

With all that has happened in the last few years, we never have gotten around to replacing his car. We’ve had a couple of little uh-oh scares with both our vehicles in the last few months, so when we close on the house, we plan to replace my truck since it has the most mileage and wear.

Tonight, we drove the 2010 Toyota Prius and the 2009 Scion xD and liked them both. We also looked at—and lauged at—the Smart for Two. There is about a $10,000 price difference between the Prius and the xD, so we’ll more likely consider the Scion. The one we drove is “electric wasabi” green and had a ton of nice features inside. We also stopped at Car Max to see what they had. There are some very good deals, there, too. We just found that you have to be careful. Some of the cars there seem like a great deal, but we suspect are going to be expensive to maintain (mileage, parts/repairs, etc.).

We aren’t going to buy anything until after the house closes, but it was nice to look for and drive a new car.

[1] In 2000, I stopped to get gas at an Exxon station in College Station. I was being “good” and filled up with 94 octane. Unfortunately, the gas tank in the ground had been filled with diesel! (Wellborn Petroleum’s mistake and payment for repairs is it’s own story.) Nearing the end of the warranty and with no promise from Nissan that I’d not have problems in the future, we replaced the truck. Within a month, E’s truck died. So, the day we went to pick up my new truck, we also bought him a new car. Two new cars at once almost killed us, but it had to be done. A couple of years later, we wanted to go ahead and replace E’s car (since we had cheaped out on it) but then ended up getting a new house instead!